Improving distribution: why is technology neglected?

John Williams quotes Professor Hesketh of Harvard as saying: “We are at the end of a significant era of technological change in transportation, warehousing, inventory control and order processing. Now a new era is evolving; one that will be marked by institutional rather than technological change. Greater gains are now possible… in part resulting from the realisation of promises made, but unfulfilled, by technology.” In this paper, John Williams argues that technologists should spend a little less time dealing with the nuts and bolts of technology and much more time questioning why those techniques are not more widely used. There are many techniques in the context of PDM which can be used to reduce costs, but they are unlikely to be used unless the restraints imposed by the industrial and organisational structure of manufacturing and distribution are removed. This is the second part of a paper originally delivered to the senior management conference of the Institute of Work Study Practitioners.